Welcome to the February 2023 Cosmic Weather Forecast by Curtis Lang with Jane Sherry.
Winter View of Downtown Winston Salem from our Balcony, photo by Jane Sherry
Here in Winston Salem we are happy to see the end of a foggy, rainy, chilly January that was like a cold, wet blanket over the landscape.
We are slowing down during the heart of the winter season, and developing our yogic practice of Santosha, or contentment. Santosha requires the yogi to cast aside egoistic goals and desires and to cultivate an attitude of inner peace and joy independent of events in the world at large.
We are resting and meditative but we also are celebrating quietly!
Happy Chinese and Vietnamese New Year!
The tumultuous year of the Water Tiger has come to an end. For that we are all grateful. We hope that the recurring financial crises, the return of global inflation, the escalation of the war in Ukraine, and the proliferation of global climate change induced humanitarian crises that made the Water Tiger such a challenging year will somehow be less formidable in 2023.
Chinese astrology indicates a good possibility for a more mellow New Year.
Starting on January 22nd, we entered the magical year of the Water Rabbit, the Forest Rabbit, when the entire world is bathed in the liminal light of the in-between, the twilight time which is the natural abode of the Rabbit who sees into Heaven and Hell Realms existing beyond the everyday rational materialist consciousness.
Feel free and empowered to explore heretofore mysterious, hidden and forbidden realms of consciousness throughout this year of the Water Rabbit!
The journey may take you well out of your comfort zone, but taking some risks will be revelatory and ultimately rewarding.
Enjoy this opportunity to discover the magic in nature! You may find new connections to the sacred Source of life among the trees, by the streams, and in your garden, in the city or in the country.
Celebrate the magic in your life and your world!
Cosmic Weather Forecast : Leo Full Moon, Aquarius Solar Festival
Romantic, dreamy Venus in Pisces squares aggressive, hyperactive Mars in Gemini. We must be prepared to stand up for ourselves in our relationships, and to take steps to release pent up, old stuck energies.
The Venus-Mars square indicates that this Full Moon week can be an opportunity to heal old wounds and and clarify toxic misunderstandings that have been creating needless discord in our lives and in the lives of our loved ones.
Be prepared for some unexpected news in the outer world, over the next two weeks, which could signal the eruption of sudden, sharp crises, involving military conflicts, civil unrest, and wild swings in financial markets.
If you're still feeling a bit stuck, February's Full Moon promises to deliver electrifying Uranian shocks that will galvanize us all into action as we begin to work toward manifesting this year's spiritual and material goals.
Those Uranian shocks are likely to invite us to work toward resolving tensions between the Leonine imperatives of our individual hopes and desires, and the demands of the overarching Aquarian social systems in which we are embedded.
Photo of Uranus, courtesy NASA
For those on the path of Spirit, there could be conflicts between our emotional attachments to individual desires and the insights and enlightenment flowing toward us from Higher Mind and the collective consciousness of our Spiritual Guides and Teachers.
If we can exercise patience, and avoid reckless actions, we can take this Full Moon interval as a time of opportunity to harmonize these two sets of conflicting priorities through the practice of detachment and discernment.
There will be plenty of time in 2023 to work toward our personal goals and also to fulfill our Higher Purpose. Now is the time to sit quietly, seek guidance and allow the intense energy of this month's Leo Full Moon T-Square to awaken us and prepare us for some great leaps forward during this Year of the Water Rabbit.
Constellation of Pisces, Star Map of John Flamsteed, courtesy Wikimedia, Public Domain
By February 15, just in time for Valentine's Day, a dreamy, romantic Venus-Neptune conjunction in Pisces forms in our skies. This stellar energy signature is all about reveling in the present moment, and enjoying an expansive consciousness that unites us with others through loving relations.
For spiritual astrologers, Venus in Pisces represents the fusion of the two opposed fishes symbolizing the Zodiacal sign of Pisces.
One fish signifies the egoistic personality and the other symbolizes the Higher Self that transcends our limited rational mental view of reality. Venus in Pisces people combine rational intelligence with heart-centered loving wisdom. Such people are ideally suited to be teachers of the Wisdom School Traditions, and such individuals can find self fulfillment through radical acts of compassionate service to all humanity.
Neptune in Pisces thins the veil between the everyday world of rational materialist consciousness and the numinous realms of subtle energies constituting the astral and mental planes of existence.
The conjunction of Venus and Neptune in Pisces indicates a time of golden opportunity for romance, spiritual practice, selfless service, and charitable giving. One couldn't imagine a more auspicious aspect for Valentine's Day.
Let us honor those gallant gentle men and inspired, creative women whose spiritual veneration of the female principle provided entire medieval communities with the blessings of courtly love and chivalric romance, and served as a potent counterweight to the patriarchal, martial values of their feudal society, structured and stratified according to bloodline, personal battle skills and the ability to field a force of loyal soldiers in the quest for ever more lands to govern and control.
For more on the ancient Goddess-centric February festivals of love and healing, see our blogpost entitled Valentine's Day Celebration of the Divine Lovers.
Are you in a relationship? Are you attracted to someone this Valentine's Day? You might enjoy reading the chapter in our Book of Love entitled The New Age of the Divine Lovers, where we show you how to know when your seven bodies are in alignment with the seven bodies of your lover.
Compatibility depends upon the subtle energy exchanges between you and your lover, and these exchanges reflect the alignment of all seven bodies.
Love is a 7-dimensional puzzle, at least! In this chapter about Divine Love you'll see how you and your valentine, lover, or mate score on 7-dimensions of compatibility. Enjoy!
The final days of February signal the end of some long term stellar cycles and a rush of new fiery energy that will galvanize us all in preparation for spring's new life.From February 26 through March 7th, Pluto is at the penultimate 29th degree of Capricorn, in preparation for a long awaited move into Aquarius. At the same time, Saturn will be at the 29th degree of Aquarius, and on March 7th, Saturn leaves Aquarius and enters Pisces.
When these slow outer planets reach the end of one sign and slowly enter the next, transformations in the collective consciousness and in the social systems that uphold the status quo in all areas of life are to be expected.
So be prepared for stellar fireworks and a big shift ahead!
Sometimes these sweeping changes can trigger dislocations that will be a little disorienting and disconcerting for the individual, the collective consciousness, and the social systems in which we are embedded.
A flashy, fiery stellium of planets occurs during the last week of February as Venus, Jupiter, Chiron, asteroids Vesta and Juno and the Moon all occupy the sign of Aries!
This Aries stellium symbolizes a rush of adrenaline powered desire to work our will in the world. If the will forces are aligned with the loving wisdom embodied in the grand unfolding plan for the spiritual evolution of human consciousness, great progress can be made in every area of life.
If on the other hand, this concentrated Martian energy is channeled into aggression designed to dominate others in order to achieve maximum benefit four ourselves, our tribe, or our nation, the results could be explosive and destructive.
Curtis and Jane in Old Salem, Selfie by Jane Sherry
The choice is ours.
Discernment and surrender to the Higher Mind will lead us forward into a springtime supercharged by adventures in expanded consciousness, yielding numinous insights into the Ground of Being, and offering us golden opportunities to achieve our spiritual and material goals.
That is the promise of the Water Rabbit!
Jane and I hold you in love and light, and we send our Reiki Blessings to you all. We affirm that you all receive the grace and guidance you require to achieve your fondest spiritual and material goals.
On a personal note, Jane's Mother Janet Sherry died in hospice on January 22nd, after a rousing 100th birthday party on Christmas Eve in Boca Raton, Florida, which was attended by a large group of family and friends. Jane has written a lovely Memoriam in her honor that we are happy to share with you all.
Meditation Moment: "Candlemas - In The Belly of Winter" by Jane Sherry.
Frozen Cattail Swamp, Willow Street, Pleasantville, New York, photo by Jane Sherry, 2001
Within frozen depths does warmth stir, and mud rises.
Seeds of air and fire, water and starlight move into the cold and wet places
that awaken from slumber.
Enlivened by bird seed, scattered over my snow cover,
I dream of spring, pulse quickens,
gardens form pictures in my body.
A spark, a heart quickening; fire-seeds
scatter out of my womb into the night,
into the dawn.
The great circle of the year draws around
again, the small flame enters the chamber.
A new year hastens us to wakefulness.
The Candlemas Festival
The evening of February 1st through the evening of February 2nd is the festival of Candlemas, called Imbolc by the ancient Celts. Candlemas is one of the holy cross quarter days of earth honoring peoples, and marks the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It is the time of quickening.
It marks the time of stirring, rousing, and enlivening out of the dark of winter's slumber.
And this moment brings, within our collective memories, the promise of renewal before the spring, awakening us to the new year.
Now is the time when farmers and gardeners envision new cycles of planting. This month, seeds will be planted in greenhouses and on warm window ledges in the Northeast.
Our bodies begin to stir, although parts of us still slumber in inner soul work. Restless desires begin to form as we watch the birds scatter seed in the snow and mud. During the lulls between winter storms, you can see stirrings of early beloved spring weeds, such as great mullein, motherwort and nettles.
Birds are much busier flying in and out of their bramble shelters. A new kitten makes its way into our hearts and home. As we eat seaweeds and brown rice, along with the end of the autumn's harvest of roots and winter squash, we start craving the tender greens and fresh wild weedy salads of spring.
As I dream of spring snows fertilizing the land, spring gardens draw pictures in my mind. I smell wet ground, unfamiliar and new, in this place on earth I do not yet know with the intimacy of gardening.
I dream of where the worms hide under leaf mulch, along with baby snakes under rock walls, barely begun before winter, more falling down, than standing guard over garden beds.
Planning for tender turnips, lettuce leaves, mixed with violets, nettles & dandelion as I search out my box of seeds saved from our garden before the move.
My own belly stirs with our Mother Earth's as I plan for meals, for love, for poems not yet read or written. We give thanks as the wind howls outside, bringing more snow, rain, sleet reminding us, winter is not yet finished with us. There is still time to dream
Photo on Homepage by Laura Ockel, courtesy Unsplash.